


mind unfold, eyes reveal

by daydoodles



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Dimension Travel, Gun Violence, Knives, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Monsters, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 07:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13806186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydoodles/pseuds/daydoodles
Summary: “You said he was dead!” he yells at Tooru, shoving him as he grabs his gun and runs out the door. Tooru tries to protest, but it’s not like Bokuto would listen to him even if he wasn’t gagged.The screams continue, an endless mantra of “Help me! Help me!” that would be unsettling at best and is downright haunting coming from Ushijima. Someone so calm and even-tempered shouldn’t sound like that, voice breaking in desperation.Then, just as suddenly as it started, it stops.





	mind unfold, eyes reveal

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I just saw Annihilation and I'm in love with the concept, but I don't have the energy to write a long ass AU fic, so I just wrote my favourite scene. I'm obsessed with this bear thing, y'all. 
> 
> Some of the details will probably make more sense if you've seen the movie, but I don't think it's necessary to read the fic. Just know that Bokuto is not in his right mind during this scene, so that's why his characterisation is...the way it is. It's a long story. Go see the movie, it's worth it.
> 
> Anyway, I tried my best to get all the triggers tagged, but please let me know if I missed any!
> 
> Also, the title's from [this song](https://youtu.be/ji-vTbkOXMA) because when have I ever been able to come up with a title on my own.

Tooru’s more or less used to the nightmares, at this point.

 

He realises, on some level, that it’s his brain’s way of trying to process it all; up till a week ago, he’d thought Hajime was dead. Finding out he isn’t hasn’t stopped the nightmares, just changed them - since Tooru’s mind no longer needs to fill in the gaps of how he died, it’s shifted to something almost worse: trying to figure out how he survived.

 

The Shimmer has amplified the darkness of his dreams, Tooru thinks, but he can’t really be sure because he hadn’t slept much between discovering Hajime was alive, but broken, and sacrificing himself to go after the thing that turned his beloved Hajime into whatever he is now. He has no idea how long they’ve been in the Shimmer, either, and he can tell it’s changing all of them slowly in some unseen, malicious way. So that’s probably not helping.

 

But for all the effort his mind has poured into coping with what happened to Hajime, it hasn’t prepared him for waking up to a screaming Bokuto and the butt of a gun to his face.

 

He blacks out, because a blow like that would knock anyone unconscious. Especially coming from someone as solid as Bokuto.

 

“You fucking liar!” is the first thing he hears when he comes back to the present, and Bokuto is shaking something angrily in his direction.

 

Tooru’s vision is still a little blurry from the blood that’s running into his left eye, but when he squints he can see what’s in Bokuto’s hand. It’s a locket. Tooru’s locket. He tries to reach out, to take it from Bokuto, protect it with his life like he has been for the past year, but his hands won’t move. He looks down, groggy and disoriented, and realises he’s tied to a chair. He tries to protest, but there’s fabric in his mouth. It tastes like sweat and dirt.

 

He hears muffled panicking, and turns his head to see Daichi tied up and gagged on his left. Kuroo on his right is in more or less the same state, both of them looking about as dazed as Tooru feels.

 

“Why did you lie to us?!” Bokuto demands, shaking his fist at Tooru again, as if he could answer even if he wanted to. The locket flies around with Bokuto’s flailing, nearly taking out Tooru’s eye. Tooru thinks that’s probably the least of his worries right now.

 

“I didn’t want to complicate things,” he tries to say, but it just comes out garbled by the cloth over his mouth. Bokuto’s face hardens, thick eyebrows angling down in what must surely be practised intimidation.

 

“So who is it?” he snaps, searching Tooru’s face. “Brother? Boyfriend? Husband?” Tooru wishes he were better at hiding his emotions. “Husband, then,” Bokuto growls, voice frosted over with something between betrayal and rage.

 

He turns to Daichi. “You knew about this, obviously.” He opens the locket, finally, flashing the tiny photo of Hajime at the three of them. It’s hard to see in the dim light, but a look of recognition flashes over Kuroo’s face. He can tell it’s the same man from the tape they’d found earlier. Knows what this means.

 

Daichi, for his part, doesn’t react much. He probably knew this would happen. He tries to say something, but Bokuto ignores him and stalks over to Kuroo, slamming a hand onto his chair. “Did you know about this?” he snarls. Kuroo frantically shakes his head.

 

Bokuto drops his arm away from Kuroo, turning back toward Tooru and Daichi. There’s something off about his eyes, something unsettling, but Tooru can’t place it. On the surface, they’re the same liquid gold they’ve always been, if a lot more tumultuous than usual. It’s what’s going on underneath those metallic pools that worries Tooru.

 

Bokuto starts pacing in front of them, swinging the locket around in his hand haphazardly as he speaks. “There are two possible reasons no one comes back from the Shimmer: one, something inside kills them, and two, something inside breaks them and they kill each other. Ushijima got eaten by a bear, so we know the first one is true. But only you and Daichi saw the bear, right?”

 

Tooru and Daichi glance at each other, then reluctantly nod their heads. Bokuto glares. “Right. Kuroo and I never saw it. All we have to go on is your word.” He takes a step closer, stabs a finger roughly against Tooru’s chest. “And _you_ are a goddamn liar!”

 

He steps back abruptly, sits against the wall, tangles his hands in his hair. Maybe he’s trying to ground himself, or maybe he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Maybe both. Tooru cuts Daichi a look; he’s the psychologist, so he’d know what to do, right? Daichi isn’t paying attention to him, though, too mesmerised by Bokuto’s meltdown. Or maybe terrified of it. Terrified of what it means for all of them.

 

“When I look at my hands, I can see it.” Bokuto holds his hands up, palms out, and even in the near dark of the room Tooru can see how much they’re shaking. “My skin, and my fingertips, are moving. Always moving.” He turns his palms to face himself, stares at them wide-eyed. “If you tied me to a chair and cut me open, would my insides move too?” He looks at Tooru, and it’s the blankest stare Tooru has ever seen. His eyes are empty now, molten gold replaced with a flat yellow. “Would my insides move like the soldier in that video? The one we found dead, eaten alive to become part of the fucking scenery?”

 

Tooru frowns under the gag; he knows what Bokuto’s thinking, senses the way Bokuto blames Hajime for whatever happened to his fellow soldier. Tooru knows it isn’t Hajime’s fault, but he can’t even say it, much less prove it. Bokuto stands, grabbing his knife from where it’s been strapped to his thigh for almost a week now.

 

“But I’m not the one tied to a chair, am I?” he asks as he walks up to Tooru, eerily calm. He raises the knife to Tooru’s chest, poised to slice him open like some goddamn science experiment, when a familiar voice interrupts him.

 

“Help me!”

 

All four of them turn, heads snapping in the direction of Ushijima’s voice. _It can’t be_ , Tooru thinks, and Daichi shoots him a questioning glare. Kuroo just looks lost, helpless. Maybe he doesn’t know whose side he should be on.

 

 _“Help me!”_ The voice is louder now, more panicked, and it snaps Bokuto out of his reverie.

 

“You said he was _dead!_ ” he yells at Tooru, shoving him as he grabs his gun and runs out the door. Tooru tries to protest, but it’s not like Bokuto would listen to him even if he wasn’t gagged.

 

The screams continue, an endless mantra of “Help me! Help me!” that would be unsettling at best and is downright haunting coming from Ushijima. Someone so calm and even-tempered shouldn’t sound like that, voice breaking in desperation.

 

Then, just as suddenly as it started, it stops.

 

Tooru holds his breath as the three of them look around the room for any sign of Bokuto, but nothing happens for a solid minute. Then there’s a slam as the front door opens, the creak of floorboards as someone crosses the hall. Or, rather, something.

 

Tooru can see the shadow of a skull bouncing off the walls of the hallway; whatever it is hasn’t gotten to the doorway yet, but it’s close. Heavy breathing is the only sound, and Tooru can’t tell where it’s coming from, drowned out by his own heart racing in his chest. His ribcage feels too small for his lungs, every breath harder to take in, heart on fire as it frantically tries to pump blood through his veins. Then, something steps into the room.

 

It’s the bear they’d seen take Ushijima, or at least, it might be a bear. It might be a bear, or the skeleton of a bear, or maybe a little of both, but when it opens its mouth, the first thing Tooru notices is rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. The second thing he notices is a deafening “Help me!” in Ushijima’s voice ripping out of the beast’s mouth.

 

All three of them freeze, Tooru’s eyes darting back and forth between Daichi and Kuroo to see if there’s any way to get out of this. The creature keeps wailing, “Help me! Help me!” over and over and over, in that disturbing approximation of a dead man’s voice. It sounds a little off now, a little shriller, like maybe the creature is losing its patience. Or maybe like Ushijima is losing his life.

 

Tooru knows Ushijima is dead. He saw it with his own eyes, Ushijima lying motionless in the forest, a gnarly gash running from his throat to his navel. His sternum had been completely shattered. There’s no way Ushijima is still alive, much less screaming for help. And yet.

 

 _“Help me! HELP ME!”_ It doesn’t stop.

 

The thing paces around the room, circling the three of them like a shark that smells blood. It keeps screaming, begging for help, growing more unhinged by the second. Its claws scrape ridges into the floorboards as it carves a path around the room, clearly agitated by the fact that its cries for help aren’t luring them in.

 

Then it walks up to Kuroo, bares its rows of fangs just inches from his face. It doesn’t scream anything at him, just growls with a voice that almost sounds human. Tooru locks eyes with Kuroo, shakes his head. “Don’t answer it,” he’s trying to say. He hopes Kuroo gets his message.

 

In the end it doesn’t matter, because a second later the beast is closing its massive jaws around Kuroo’s left shoulder.

 

He cries out, screams of agony easy to hear even through his gag. The creature doesn’t move, just lets its teeth sink further into the flesh of Kuroo’s shoulder, and Tooru swears he hears a tendon snap. Kuroo’s crying, tears involuntarily streaming down his face as his body tries to accommodate for the pain. It isn’t working, but Tooru hopes it makes Kuroo feel even a little better.

 

There’s another bang from the hall, then gunshots are ricocheting through the air, raining over the creature’s head and shoulders, barely leaving more than scratches on their way through its body. It releases its grip on Kuroo, turning its attention to Bokuto, who’s standing in the doorway holding his rifle, right arm limp at his side and covered in blood.

 

The thing pounces, knocking Tooru and Kuroo over in the process, and then the screaming starts again.

 

“Help me!” it shrieks as it snaps at Bokuto’s face, teeth grazing his good arm as he tries to hold it back. Tooru manages to free one hand, ripping out the gag before desperately trying to untangle the rest of himself from the chair. Kuroo is in a similar state, though he’s having a lot more trouble with the blood gushing from his shoulder, left arm completely useless. Daichi’s still struggling to get even one of his hands free.

 

Bokuto is still struggling, the beast inflicting wounds with every thrash of its head; a bite here, a broken bone there, till it finally sinks its teeth into Bokuto’s throat and rips out his esophagus. Blood spurts from the wound with the last few beats of Bokuto’s heart, then he goes still.

 

Without Bokuto to distract it, the creature turns its attention back to them. Or, more specifically, to Tooru, because he’s closest to the door. It rushes at him, and he hasn’t gotten his legs free so he can’t run, but at least he can use both of his arms. As the beast lunges for his head, Tooru manages to stop its jaws just inches from his face, but that only pisses it off more.

 

It keeps its momentum going, rushing forward, shoving Tooru, chair and all, across the room till his back hits the opposite wall. His arms are shaking, the creature is still yelling for help with the voice of Ushijima, and Tooru considers just accepting his fate. He’s only human, he can’t last against this thing forever. One of them will wear out first, and somehow Tooru doubts it will be the beast.

 

He’s bidding this world goodbye, the creature’s fangs grazing his cheeks, just as a smattering of bullets find their way through the creature’s skull. It keeps fighting for a good thirty seconds, wave of bullets never ceasing, raining blood on Tooru's face, before finally the hole in its head is too much to bounce back from. It loosens its hold on Tooru’s face, staggers for a heartbeat, then falls heavily onto Tooru’s chest.

 

He looks over to the left, and Kuroo is smirking, even though his shoulder’s still gushing blood, arm hanging helplessly at his side. In the other hand is his rifle, supported by his knee and his one good arm as he crouches in the corner. Daichi’s next to Kuroo, one arm out of its restraint, looking erratically back and forth between the two of them, taking stock of the situation. He rips the gag out of his mouth.

 

“Jesus fuck,” is all he says, and Tooru has to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a monsterfucker Iwaoi idea, so maybe I'll do that next? [Hmu](http://daisukiwa.tumblr.com) if you want to enable me and think I should write more monster shit. Or give me other ideas, since this is what I do when y'all leave me to my own devices.


End file.
